


The OA Drabbles

by theimpossiblegeekygrrl



Category: The OA (TV)
Genre: Drabble Collection, F/M, Lima Syndrome, Stockholm Syndrome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:15:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 7,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26830510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theimpossiblegeekygrrl/pseuds/theimpossiblegeekygrrl
Summary: A repost of drabbles from years past, written after Part I.
Relationships: Prairie Johnson | The OA/Hunter Aloysius "Hap" Percy
Comments: 3
Kudos: 7





	1. Cuba

Even though I’d tried to be truthful with the five, there was a certain point where I knew I couldn’t tell them what really happened in Cuba. I would have lost their trust, and we were so close to the end that I couldn’t risk losing them.

It wasn’t Homer who went with Hap to kidnap Renata. How could he have taken someone he disliked so much, who would have found a way out of that hotel room and never looked back?

It was I who woke on the plane, wearing a clean white skirt and the lilac sweater Hap had worn last year, around Christmas. My hair was loose around my shoulders, and when I reached up to touch it, there was a thin gold band on my left hand.

“It was my mother’s.”

I jumped when I heard Hap’s voice in the headset and looked to my left. He was staring at me, and probably had been for some time.

My mouth was dry, and I had to swallow before I could speak above a whisper. “The others? Where… Where are… ?”

“They’re safe,” he said, his voice clipped, as he turned back to the control panel.

* * *

Consciousness came and went, my thoughts as foggy as the glass in the basement before Hap wiped it clean.

He was drugging my water. I was sure of that when my thoughts were clear enough to process such information. But now, with hindsight, sometimes I think that his skillful hands, when he brushed the hair from my shoulder, slipped one of his tiny hypodermics into the skin around my neck.

In my stupor, I would silently watch him. He already knew I could see, that had never been a secret for me to keep. But it was our secret, that he knew.

Now, I could study him as he did me.

It was always when my gaze was too intense - my thoughts making my eyes dance around his face, the control panel, to the vast expanse of violet-blue sky outside - that he would touch my hair, my shoulder, and insist I keep drinking from the bottle in front of me. The water was so clean and cold, so different from the stream downstairs or the water from his tap.

It wasn’t until my eyes grew heavy again that I would silently curse him, just before the world disappeared.

* * *

I was aware of vague voices around me and of rhythmic motion, as though I was walking. But I wasn’t in control of anything, merely a passenger in my own existence. When I started to come back to myself, I realized I must have been awake the whole time, as my eyes were dry and tired.

The world came into focus, as it did that first day when I regained my sight. I was aware of light, then of colour, then of blurry images that became clear after blinking. I found myself in a room, a real room, upon a pillow-soft bed that smelled softly of lilacs. Closing my eyes, I burrowed into the comforter. My sense of hearing sparked into life then, and I heard the familiar quickening thuds that did not belong to me.

_Hap._

He was close, right next to me in the bed. The heat from his body warmed my back, and the scent of his cologne tickled my nose. Dimly, I wondered if I could pretend he wasn’t there, and chase sleep in this lovely bed.

But that dream wasn’t meant to be.

He sighed as he shifted his weight. “I know you’re awake, Prairie.”

* * *

“No.”

Hap told me of his plan, of his desire to have this beautiful, talented woman as another test subject. 

He wanted me to help him capture her.

_Kidnap her._

How could he ask this? I’d once promised myself that I’d never let him see my tears again. Yet here I was, wet rivers running down my cheeks as I held back the sobs threatening to break free from my lips.

“Don’t make me state the obvious.” His voice was calm, even though his entire body was tense.

“I’d rather die than do this to another person.” My voice shook, and I was having a hard time catching my breath.

Quick as a panther, his face was next to mine, so close our noses almost touched. His eyes were so blue, and I was so close to him that I could see the golden flecks around his irises. “If you don’t, I’ll make sure you live, long enough to witness the suffering that will happen down in the basement.”

I froze.

It was a threat he’d made before, or at least alluded to. Maybe, if not for the drugs in my system, I would have understood the danger, before now.

_Homer._

* * *

We had been talking, perhaps only a week ago, about what might happen if we were separated without the help of the movements. We’d been practicing the two we’d been given as often as possible, until our cells walls were covered in steam and our bodies glistened with sweat. To see him on the other side, moving in time with me, his focus so intent on perfecting my movement…

It was exhausting work, but it was the only foreseeable way for any of us to have a future beyond this place.

My muscles felt like liquid when we stopped that day, both sitting on the cool stone floor and facing one another.

“I’d find you,” Homer said, his voice proud and strong despite the waiver in his eyes. He was so sure of himself, or wanted to be.

I leaned in and touched the glass between us, tracing the outline of his lips on the damp surface. “You know he wouldn’t make it easy.”

Homer shrugged, turning his head to the side as he scratched his neck. “You give him too much credit.”

My hand lingered, just at the tip of his nose. “You don’t give him enough.”

Neither of us did.

* * *

_I hate you._

For a moment, I thought I’d spoken the words aloud. Hap flinched, his eyes widening as he backed away from me. He let out a breath, filling the space between us with the scent of tobacco and the cinnamon gum he often chewed.

“You don’t have a choice,” he said, his voice catching, so slightly you’d have to be as close as I was to catch it. He put a hand on my shoulder, and then it was my turn to flinch.

I closed my eyes, shutting him out of my reality, and started to hum.

“Prairie.”

I hummed louder, drowning out the sound of his voice. It was peaceful where I was, inside my mind. There was a field studded with periwinkles, with a lake at the centre. Next to it was a tall figure, waving for me to come to him. But when I got closer, the dark-haired man wasn’t the one who I expected.

The hum fell silent in my throat, and I opened my eyes, seeing the man in the field again, lying in the bed next to me. He was frowning, his expression changed to one of concern.

“Where did you go?”

* * *

“Away. I went…” I frowned, taking a slow breath so that he wouldn’t notice how fast my heart was beating. “I imagined a place far away.”

“What was there, Prairie?” He knew I was lying; I could tell by the way he said my name, but he didn’t seem upset. On the contrary, Hap was as excited as he was the night we ate oysters together, so long ago.

“Nothing. I mean…” I sighed, considering if telling the truth would be less dangerous. “Nothing exciting. Just a field where my father and I used to picnic when I was a child.”

Hap chuckled, the sound making me shiver. “Are you sure that’s all that was there?”

I looked away, at the lamp on the bedside table, focusing its shape. “It was beautiful there.”

“I believe you, Prairie, it’s just that-” Hap touched my face with his fingertips, turning it so that my eyes met his again. “I’ve never seen you smile like that, even when you talk about your father, or Russia.”

“Why should you care?”

He shrugged. “Because there’s something you aren’t telling me.”

“Do my daydreams really matter?”

The question hung in the air between us.

* * *

We walked to the club, hand in hand like the lovers strolling around us. The air around us was thick with humidity and smelled faintly of the sea, enough to remind me of where I was in the world. A strand of hair stuck to the fine sheen of sweat on my forehead, and I blew it out of my face with breath that was cooler than the air around us.  
  
“Do you need to sit for a while?” Hap asked, squeezing my hand. “It’s a warm night, warmer than it was the last time I was here.”  
  
“I’m fine,” I lied. I did want to stop, but not because of the heat.  
  
“You’ll love the food at the club. The cook makes the best… well, you’ll be tasting it soon,” he said, humming a little as he took a drag from his cigarette.  
  
I shook my head.  
  
“What?”  
  
“How can you do that, knowing what you do about smoking?” I asked, waving the stench from my face.  
  
“Does it bother you?”   
  
I nodded.   
  
Sighing, he threw it in the street. “Better?”  
  
I nodded again.  
  
“Good,” he said, slipping his arm around my waist.

I clinched my teeth and forced a smile.

* * *

The food tasted like ash in my mouth, even though I put on my brightest smile and told Hap that the fish was the best I’d ever tasted. How I longed for a restaurant from long ago when my world had been black and innocent, and a plate of crispy fries was the most decadent dish in New York.

“Here, try mine,” Hap said, passing me his fork. He watched me intently as I stared at the flakey white fish delicately coated in green herbs, his eyes following the tines until they passed through my lips.

“It’s really nice,” I lied.

“Just relax, tonight. I want you to be able to sit back and enjoy yourself for a change.” He took a deep sip from a glass of pale, honey-coloured liquid and motioned for me to do the same with mine. I was startled by how dry it tasted in my mouth, and realized that it must be alcohol. 

“What about… her?” I couldn’t bear to say her name.

“I’ll know when it’s time. Don’t worry about the details.”

I picked at my food, listening to the unfamiliar language around me until I felt I would crawl out of my skin.

* * *

He smoked again after desert, a cigar this time. The alcohol had gone to my head by then, so when he drew me close to him and placed the cigar to my lips I gave in, letting him teach me how to puff on the fragrant smoke.

“I wish we could stay here,” he murmured. “Just you and me. Anything could be possible again.”

I exhaled, not knowing what to say. Not wanting to say anything at all. I felt too comfortable in this space, and it was a dangerous thing.

“More wine?” Hap asked.

I nodded numbly, letting him feed me sips like a doll. The wine was richer now and sweet, its name flowing from his lips seductively. I held it in my mouth until the sugar tickled my tongue, swallowing when I needed relief. His fingertips drew tiny circles on my back, and in a moment of forgetting I sighed, escaping into his warmth.

She brought me back, or at least her music did. That moment, when I could have lost myself in fantasy, was the first time I heard Renata play guitar. A vibrant, perfect sound pulled me into the present, and I opened my eyes.

* * *

Music had become a luxury that I had long forgotten about. Hap’s music – the heavy metal he favoured when was working, and the oldies that played when he wasn't – was not what I had been longing to become a part of. My violin disappeared as soon as I had entered his home, and with it the relationship I had with a chord, a simple note, o reven a long pause of my own creation. I knew that a part of me had gone with it, that inner place of pleasure that only the strings under my fingers could bring.

Listening to Renata’s music was like coming home. The perfection of each note, watching her as she moved with her guitar as though it part of her body-

“There are no words.”

His breath was on my neck, on my ear, and a delicious shiver ran through my spine at the sensation.

I sighed and let him pull me closer, so entranced by the world I was in that I let myself forget instead of remember the things that had been so important to me since my imprisonment. For a moment, the world felt as limitless as it had in New York.

* * *

It was over too soon.

The final note of her song resonated in the air like its own concertina, and I closed my eyes again to appreciate the lingering sensation as it clung to the air. I didn’t get to enjoy the leaving as I would have if I had been playing in my own, silent room, and the applause came too soon. When I opened my eyes, I saw the same look in hers, a distant disappointment before her graciousness pulled a veil over her thoughts.

My hands clumsily came together, as intoxicated as I was from the evening.

“I don’t want to leave,” I whispered.

“Stay with me then, forever.”

The words were so softly spoken that I knew they hadn’t been meant for my ears. I rubbed the band on my finger with the pad of my thumb, losing myself further into the forgetting. The movements had not brought me to this place, not really. But, my actions had helped create this world of our own design. I turned my head, enough to realize he was watching me again. His gaze was intent enough that I knew it had only been set on me, this whole night.

* * *

Two inches of air hung between us. In his eyes, I could see myself – the heavy lids, parted mouth – and understood the intent of the word _desire_.

This was different than the sweetness of that other place, the simplicity and pureness of unrequited fantastical longing.

This was real.

“For a man who likes symmetry, this is exactly who I would have imagined you with.” The heavily accented voice broke the spell, and I couldn’t help but frown as I looked up to meet the darkest eyes I had yet to see. She had a cigar in one hand, and the hand of young woman in the other.

Hap chuckled, his voice light when he said, “My wife is a woman beyond imagination, Renata.”

He’d told me her name, before. But it sounded different in this room. I let the word glide through my mind, imagining the way it would resonate on my lips. As though she could hear my thoughts, Renata looked at me again, letting her gaze slide over my body in a way that made me blush.

“What is your name, _cara bella_?”

“Pra-,” I looked down and cleared my throat. “Nina. Nina Percy.” I looked at Hap and smiled, taking his hand in mine.

* * *

“So pretty, Dr Percy.” Renata whispered something to her companion, smiling as they walked to the balcony.

Hap watched them leave, then turned to me as he squeezed my hand. “Do you want to dance?”

I blushed again, my thumb grazing the matching ring on his finger. “I haven’t danced with anyone since my high school prom. I’ve probably forgotten how, after-”

“I’ve seen you move,” he murmured, brushing a wayward strand of hair from my face. “It’s not much different, with a partner and music.”

He led me to the balcony; when the band began to play he led my movements, and I mimicked him until I was comfortable enough to let the music flow through me. The windows showed our reflections, and I saw what Renata must have seen inside the club: a woman, not much older than a girl with long, pale hair dressed in white muslin, and a man who was no doubt a man, dark hair and flashing eyes, dressed head to toe in black.

Near perfect symmetry.

And in Hap’s arms, his hands on my hips, rocking with me in time to the bass… it was a perfect completion.

* * *

I don’t remember the walk back to the hotel. But I remember everything that came after.

We were caught up in the fantasy, or at least I was. And when reality came sweeping in for too long I closed my eyes to it, focusing on the present and on the sensation of Hap’s skin against my own.

His lips sought mine the moment he shut the door behind us and pleasure, desire, and even my anger towards him poured out of me as I returned his kisses, adding more of my own to his jaw and neck. I was overwhelmed and even overjoyed at the proximity of him, wanting to breathe him into me as he undressed us both. Every nook, every curve of my body demanded his touch, even when pain overtook me long enough to lift the illusion away for the briefest moment. But instead of the monster ( _the Angel Hunter_ ) hovering over me… it was only a man who stared down, a man with tears in his eyes who kissed me until I was his Nina once more.

“My angel,” he whispered, repeating the words until my cries of pleasure silenced us both.

* * *

When I woke, the sun was kissing my face, and I smiled as I burrowed into the warmth of the bed. I smelled him all around me, though when my hand searched his side of the bed, it found only the indent from where his body had lain. Gathering the blankets around my body, I got up and quickly scanned the suite of rooms. I could just see him outside on the balcony, the tell-tale wisps of smoke floating away.

I walked to him, ignoring the glare of his monitors on the desk, and slid the door open. Hap looked up at the noise, his eyes softening when they met mine.

“Good morning, Nina,” he said, setting down his laptop as he scooted over on the bench, giving me room to sit.

“You were gone.” I rested my head against his shoulder, and his arm moved around my waist.

“You were sleeping soundly, have been since…” Hap’s cheeks darkened, his pupils dilating slightly as his eyes wandered down to thin blanket covering me.

“What about the timeline?” I whispered, the illusion slipping as I saw Renata’s file on the table next to us.

“It can be adjusted,” he answered.

* * *

Looking back now, I wonder if I was so willing to accept the charade, letting myself slip into the role of Hap’s lover as though it had always been that way, because I wanted to save Renata from the life back in the mine. It shouldn’t have been so easy, and in any place other than this I don’t know if I’d been so willing.

That’s what I tell myself, at least, when the weather outside slips into a humid heat. That’s when the memories flood back the strongest, making me want to shed my stiff clothes for gauzy dresses that floated around me when I moved. If I close my eyes, I can almost smell the tobacco from his cigars and taste the sweet wine we drank after dinner each night.

I know that for two weeks, I willingly forgot everything other than where we were in the world, as though the movements had carried us both to another life. One where there was no mine, no lies, no violence. I had no past, no future, there was only…

Only Hap.

He was my first, my last, my every waking moment.

The woman I was loved him.

The woman I am now…

* * *

I knew the spell was breaking when we woke. There was a shift, a palpable distance between my heart and his. Even in the way it sounded beneath my ear, a subtle quickening that only I knew was a tell.

His hand grazed my hair, moving a few strands from my shoulder before he cleared his throat. “Good morning, my dear.”

I pressed a kiss to his chest, silently asking for more time with the man I’d fallen asleep with last night.

“How did you rest?” His voice was tired, and I wondered how long he had been awake.

“Well,” I said. “You took all my energy last night.”

“As you took mine,” he chuckled. The hickey on his neck was still there long after we’d returned to the mine; that morning it was so purple that I was surprised I hadn’t drawn blood. His hand drew circles on my back, in the hollow above my tailbone. His fingers shook slightly, enough to make my heart ache.

“We won’t be here much longer, will we?”

His hand stopped moving, just briefly, before settling on the slight curve of my hip. “We leave tomorrow morning.”

A tear slid down my cheek.

* * *

She wouldn’t even look at me in the mine, not until after Scott rose from the cold ground, the red rivers of blood around his body retreating as though they had never even been present.

Neither would Homer.

 _Homer_.

I could feel his pain through the panes of glass as though it were my own. If I were more honest, I probably felt it back in Cuba, even before I finally came back to myself. I didn’t know then that Hap was transmitting audio of our days and nights together back to the mine for everyone to hear. He declared it an accident when we returned, after the betrayal in everyone’s eyes told me what I should have known all along.

I hated him for it.

Forgiveness did not come easy, though through the movements and through the truth of our discoveries in our NDE’s it eventually came from everyone, even…

Even her.

I deserved nothing, yet I was given everything back.

Even so, on the nights when I stared into the glass, wishing for Homer’s touch as our fingers met on the opposite sides of our prison walls, there were moments where I almost…

_Almost…_

_(Almost.)_


	2. Frozen Sunrise

The sky was lilac, feathered with wisps of white.

“Beautiful,” I murmured.

It was the first sunrise I’d seen in two years, if I could see beyond the trees, or past the anger and hurt in Hap’s eyes. The ground cut my tender scars as he moved over me, though there was no pain where there should have been. I felt only what I wanted to feel - the movements flowing between Homer, and me, and the others…

Not the movements that violated my body.

The bright streaks of a yellow sun filtered into the sky, far away from here.


	3. Trips Around the Sun

Hap tried not make it a habit, though after seven years it should have been easy enough to do so.  
  
Before meeting Prairie, the birthdays of his cohort had been a meaningless detail in their file – just another number among the strings of information that could fill reams of paper, if he ever printed them. But hers was special to him, and always would be. If anything could be tattooed on his heart, it would be the string of eight numbers that represented the day he met Prairie Johnson for the first time. Though her name had changed and evolved over the years, from Nina to Prairie, and now to the new name she called herself when she thought he wasn’t listening, this was the one thing that she could never change.  
  
Just like her heartbeat.

It was in the third year after she came to stay with him that he realized he should somehow recognize the day with her: celebrate it, even if it was for the purely selfish reason that he wanted to make her smile.

Prairie looked nervous when he led her up the stairs, but her expression gentled when the scent of food reached her nose.

“French fries?” she whispered, feeling for the countertop next to her.

“Yes, but no oysters this time.” Not for her, at least. There were a dozen on the half shell waiting for him in the refrigerator.

And there it was, a flicker across her lips that she tried to immediately supress, though she failed miserably. The soft, sweet smile made her lips curve (and made the damn kitchen light up around her).

“Sit.”

Prairie nodded, smoothing her dress around her as he set the plates on the table. Just as he had on her twenty-first birthday, he took her hand and placed it over the condiments.

“The good stuff…” she finished. She hummed happily as she ate several in quick succession, all but ignoring him as he sat across from her. “Is it my birthday?”

He nodded, then remembered himself and spoke out loud. “Yes.”

Her eyes moved to the right, unfocused and so blue that they put the prairie sky to shame. “How old am I?”   
  
“Twenty-four,” he said.  
  
Prairie nodded slowly, sighing as she turned to look at him.   
  
Through him.   
  
“Will I ever celebrate a birthday away from here?”  
  
He stopped breathing for a moment, his heartbeat ringing in his years. Hers made her dress tremble, and Hap realized that she was not breathing either. Curious that their hearts would beat in time, almost like a duet...  
  
“No.”  
  
She nodded and turned her face away from him, though not quickly enough for him to miss a glimpse of the tear that slid down her right cheek.


	4. Whoosh

The monitor is a flat line, the code called moments before. In the cold, violet room, the only life is his own. As a trauma fellow, Hap is the one to officially pronounce this woman dead. But there’s something here with him, something…

  
( _Whoosh_.)

  
A feeling, a presence. Something that makes every hair on his body stand on end. Hap looks at the body, yellow stethoscope still in his ears.

  
The patient’s heart is completely silent. Still. Like a frozen lake in the dead of winter.

  
And yet –

  
( _Whoosh…_ )

  
Something left her.

  
Dr. Hunter Aloysius Percy’s life, begins.


	5. The Source of Strength

It was easier to watch Prairie downstairs, with a flight of stairs and layers of Earth between them.

In a moment of weakness that he could not make himself regret, Hap brought her up, up, up … back into the sun and light. Her beauty, her kindness, even the fragrance of her body blinded him when he watched her stand in his doorway, basking in the morning’s soft rays. He had to shut his eyes against it, else he might go mad himself. In any case, he felt drunk when he closed the door, shutting off the source of her strength.

Still intoxicated, he made a deal with her, and with himself. Prairie would tend to his home and to him, to keep her mind busy.

For her, it was the world, being able to explore a new space that she could slowly make her own.  
  
For him, it was everything, and she didn’t even realize it. To have a companion to talk with, eat with… be _present_ with. After so many years alone ( _Christ, how many now?_ ), Hap had come to think that he needed no one other than the ones that he occasionally glanced at downstairs. Before, he could be clinical, detached – ever the perfect scientist.

 _But now_ …

Now, he longed for the moments when Prairie was with him. Occasionally, when she was downstairs sleeping, he would catch the scent of her soap or find a strand of her long blonde hair on his pillow. The pang of lonesomeness would possess him, down to his gut, and he would have to run to the monitor, just to make sure she was still there.

_Why was the light so dazzling, when all he’d ever wanted was to remain hidden in the safety of the darkest parts of his mind?_

She didn’t know he watched her then, even though she always knew when he glanced her way when they were in the kitchen, in his study, or elsewhere. Hell, perhaps she did know, and was kind enough not to ask too many questions about what he did when she was gone.

Hap tried not to determine how many hours he spent watching her on the screen. Even in the fluorescent dreariness of the old mine shaft, she glowed. If he could write such things, he would describe her as a star surrounded by mist in a grey sky, still brightly shining, just for him. When those thoughts came he would change the screen to a more dreary sight, focusing on the gloom that fell before him. 


	6. Do What You Must

Prairie watches him as he descends the stairs, just as though it was any other day. Hap is still favouring his ribs; his step only just noticeably affected by his pain. It makes the others laugh, especially due to the length of time it has taken for the wounds to heal from his ‘accident’. If she could muster a laugh in his presence, she would, but she does not want to give him the satisfaction of seeing her smile, even if it’s at his own expense.

She averts her eyes when he reaches the floor, taking on her former appearance of a blind woman. Over the long weeks, she has relearned his ways since her ‘accident’, and knows that he will come to her cell last of all, even though it’s she that he watches when he makes his rounds. She knows the second he sees her, seeing just what she has done. There is a missed step, a low curse, then rapid footfalls as he walks to the outside of her cell.

“What have you done?”

* * *

He can’t …  


Prairie’s hair, her beautiful hair is -  
  


“I had an accident, when I was tending to my plant,” she says softly. “They tell me it’s bad.”  


Hap nods, then remembers himself and says, “Yes, it’s… What did you do?”  
  


“The sap.” She motions to her side, where the horrid thing stands tall and proud. “I didn’t know it was on the back of my hands and arms. I tried to get it out, but –“  


“You made it worse, didn’t you?” he sighs.  
  


Prairie nods. “Do you have anything that can fix it?”  


“No,” he says quietly as he opens her door. Taking her elbow, he leads her from her room, over to his work benches. There, he keeps clippers, nail files, safety razors… a large pair of heavy silver scissors. The chair he keeps for her is comfortable, and she sits gracefully when he guides her to it. “I’ll have to cut it.”  


“Do what you must,” she says.  
  


Hap looks down at her, catching the blue in her eyes as she looks away. He dons his purple gloves, careful not to get any of the sticky sap on his skin, and touches the sticky braid. Once, he’d hoped to caress this beautiful skein of silk with his bare hands. But all chances of that are over.  
  


“Is there something else wrong?” she asks. As always, she is very still in the chair and very sure of herself when she says, “You’re looking me."  


“No, I’m… deciding the best place to cut,” he says quickly. He picks up the shears, and the braid is gone after several horrible snips. Breathing is hard, though he controls his anguish by coughing.  
  


 _Damn cigarettes. They might be the end of him after all.  
_

“I’ll walk you to the sink so you can scrub your hands and arms.”  


“Thank you, Hap,” she says. He tries not to notice the small twist in her mouth that has nothing to do with the loss of her hair.


	7. La Petite Mort

She hummed when she cooked, and he loved her for that. 

Of course, Hap loved Prairie for many reasons (most of which were beyond his own understanding), but such a simple act touched what was left of his soul in a way he couldn’t describe. Before he brought her upstairs – before he brought her to the mine, full stop – he had lived a life of silence and relative solitude. What’s more, he’d liked it that way. Life had been predictable, scheduled, regimented. Just as focused and orderly as the papers he would one day write, proving the existence of the afterlife.

_But now…_

He leaned back in his chair in the kitchen, pushing his glasses up his nose as he watched her sway in time with the melody of her song. Prairie had stirred up his life, just as easily as she did the pot of soup she was currently tending. Nothing had been the same since she arrived. The stillness of his mind, as placid as the surface of a perfectly calm lake, had been filled with ripples caused by her small hands. The odd thing was, as each day passed, Hap found he didn’t mind the intrusion.

“What are you humming?” he asked.

Her whole body went still, and he cursed himself, now wishing he had not spoken. “Just a song my father taught me when I was a child.”

“It’s lovely.”

Prairie nodded and sat down the spoon, feeling her way to the sink. He stood as she washed her hands, the sound of the water covering the light pad of his footsteps. Her entire body shook when he slipped his arms around her, and the nape of her neck clammy when he buried his nose in the light, floral fragrance of her skin.

“Don’t,” she whispered. “You promised.”

Hap ran his hands down her stomach. “Please?” he asked. “Just one more time?”

There was a pause, the longest pause he’d ever endured save for the moment he thought he’d have to leave her at the oyster bar. If she’d said ‘no’ he would have respected it, as he always begrudgingly did. When she nodded her head, his sigh of relief filled the now eerily silent room.

Taking his hand in hers, Hap led Prairie down the hall to his bedroom and undressed her himself. She always looked like the angel she thought herself to be when she lay on his dark sheets, her pale hair loose, and her skin glowing in the moonlight. 

Tonight he would give her a thousand little deaths with his hands, his mouth, and his cock.

Tomorrow he would kill her in the machine, only to bring her back again.


	8. Gloom

Hap hit her with the rifle before he realized just what he’d done.

By then, it was too late.

Prairie fell onto the straw-coloured grass in a heap; dead weight wrapped in white cotton. Frantic, especially when blood started to seep through her pale hair, he knelt to her side and put his left index and middle fingers to her neck. When he felt nothing other than her rapidly chilling skin, he dropped the gun and used both hands, running his fingers over her carotid arteries, sliding down to her wrists when he still could detect no movement.

“ _No_ ,” he whispered. Pure instinct took over, and after checking his watch, his hands went to his neck, looking for the stethoscope that hadn’t been there in a decade. Cursing, Hap dropped his head to Prairie’s chest, pressing his ear over her heart. He couldn’t help but notice that she smelled like the lilac soap he’d purchased for her before they left New York.

But the fragrant body was silent; no breath rose or fell against his cheek.

_Not like this, not like this._

Hap didn’t want to hurt her more than he already had, so when he started CPR he tried to be as gentle. He’d broken too many ribs in his former career, and he couldn’t stand to see her in that kind of pain.

It was easy to find a rhythm that suited him; the rock music in his head provided the perfect cadence. Too soon it was time to breathe for her, and when Hap tilted her chin, almost like a real lover would, he saw her sky-blue eyes were already beginning to cloud over. Prairie’s lips were cool against his and tasted like the figs he’d shipped in to apologize for the way she found August. Now it seemed trivial that she hadn’t smiled for him, even though she’d groaned in pleasure when he’d fed her a bite.

Cycle after cycle Hap continued, checking his watch just as he would if he were still in the emergency room. After five minutes with no response and no medications to give her - the house fifteen minutes away - he wondered if he should just...

Shaking his head, he continued, even though cold sweat was running down his cheeks, and his arms were beginning to ache with exertion. 

Just as he had finished what felt like the hundredth cycle, pushing a warm breath of air from his lungs into hers, Hap paused briefly to wipe his eyes.

 _No tears. What good would tears do to save her now_?

That was when he felt it. At first he thought it was his imagination; when he leaned in he closed his eyes, focusing only on sensation. A warm breeze floated against his cheek, almost like the ocean wind. Hap opened his eyes and looked down at Prairie’s face, seeing the small wrinkle form between her brows, at the spot that showed she was going to be stubborn about one of his requests. Her chest barely rose with the effort to breathe on her own, and the frantic flutter of her pulse was just visible under her ear.

“Come back to me,” he whispered, running his thumbs along her cheeks as he tilted her neck slightly, making it easier for her to catch her first full breath in…

_Christ.  
_

Hap checked his watch for the last time, realizing she had been gone for over seven minutes. He leaned back on his heels, careful to keep her airway open as he let his wonder for the miracle of this woman surround him. As he looked up at the sky, he could just see the first strains of twilight peak through the grey clouds – pale lavender and soft pink rays of sun shining against the gloom.


	9. Slight of Hand

On an ordinary day, he may not even visit. 

Eye contact, or any contact at all, is something he attempts to minimize. Hence the gas, which makes them so perfectly compliant when it’s their time. There are easier ways to make them submissive for their trials, of course: chemically induced comas, paralysation…

The list is truly endless. 

* * *

He’s watched her more than any of his subjects thus far. 

There’s something about her, something so startling and terrifyingly different. She’s fragile. _Fractured_. He could sense it when he heard her play in the subway, resonating clearly above the sad notes of the music. 

He’s always been keen to it, even when he still practised traditional medicine. He can almost taste vulnerability on his tongue like the sweetness of wild honey.

But this one …

* * *

She’s bright, and in more ways than one. He feels like a moth drawn to her night after night as he watches her sleep on the monitor. 

She talks to herself, even then.

* * *

He doesn’t want to take her from the safety of her cell, but he doesn’t want her to wither away. When he sees her face in the sun, her blue eyes filling with light, he briefly loses himself in her happiness.

Small moments, very small moments are all he allows himself.

* * *

She comes upstairs now and tends to him. This is a first, and he realizes just how long he has lived a life of solitude. Slowly, he makes her time with him above ground easier, purchasing a labelling machine to mark kitchen items in braille and special sensors for the stove and sink. 

Occasionally, outside of the times where her mind is filled with chemicals, he touches her. Usually it’s to guide her hand to a fresh towel or to a sprig of mint he’s brought in for tea. Just the slightest of brush of contact to her warm, silky skin.

The cringe that comes before she moves away is never so slight.

Nor is the dull stab of pain he feels.


	10. White Room

_“Homer?”_

We’d been told that our memories would fade, but when I wake in the cool white room, I don’t expect them to leave so soon. My thoughts, all the pictures and sounds that make up my conscious mind slip away from me, just like the gas that had once slipped into my cell in the basement. 

The memory of my adoptive parents is the first to go: the sight of Abel’s strong face, the sensation of my fingers running over the smooth bridge of Nancy’s nose. America, school, computers… It trickles out as though it never existed, leaving my mind as clean and blameless as Khatun’s must be when she walks through the heavens. 

Soon I’m no longer Prairie.

I’m Nina. 

But even this is fleeting, as are the memories that I was once my father’s beloved daughter.

My world there was violet, lavender, lilac. Soft and fragile. Always in the midst of letting go.

And now, I finally can.

I’m left with only two images before everything fades completely, and the room becomes so bright that even the walls around me vanish. I see Homer’s clear green eyes, so honest and loving, as they were when he gazed at me through the other side of the glass. 

And though I don’t understand why, my last fading memory is Hap’s face. Such sad blue eyes, the colour of wild forget-me-nots. 

_Have you already forgotten me?_

The room is startlingly white, and I’m finally alone.

_Away._


End file.
